


Deviations

by thosefarplaces



Series: Preludes [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:10:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2078055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosefarplaces/pseuds/thosefarplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion fic to Origins, from a few new perspectives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deviations

**"not today"**

After they find your partner's body, the official report says accidental overdose. But he was your _partner._ Your mentor. And it's your job to notice things. So in the aftermath, only then, you finally notice all the details that had seemed so trivial before as they slide together with horrible, inevitable precision.

They say accidental overdose, and you let them, because he had a family and it might make things easier.

When they don't pair you up with anyone for a while, you don't say anything. But you also don't mind. Then one day the Captain pulls you over to tell you about a new transfer. Part of you wants to say no. But it's not a request, and the other part of you...the other part of you thinks that maybe this is some kind of second chance.

"Hello, rookie," is the first thing you say to her, and she rolls her eyes and gives you the most shit-eating grin you've ever seen.

You grin back, even though you shouldn't, because you get the feeling this one's gonna be okay.

**"a gift"**

You pray that there'll be less trouble here. That they'll be safe. Only in prayers do you let yourself sound more desperate than angry. (Not scared, though. Never scared.)

You don't know yet that you're bringing at least half the trouble with you, that this girl has all the anger of your lifelong fight crammed into her eight-year-old body, and she has none of the focus to use it. You don't know about the police visits or the stash of coke you'll find in the bathroom several years later, or the long nights spent waiting up, hoping that no matter the state she's in she'll at least come home. But you also don't know about them giggling on the piano bench as he tells her she is _hopeless_ , or about the news she'll bring you one day, hard-eyed and scared, like she almost wants you to be angry so she can be, too, so she'll have something to lash out at. You don't know about the one time - only once - that she calls you Mum.

For now, you pray. And you hope it'll all be worth it.

**"i'm just saying"**

She always leaves notes.

Sometimes it'd take you days to find them, because they had to be somewhere S wouldn't look, and there was never much logic to the hiding places beyond that. The worst was when she hid it in a tree, like, oh good, nevermind that you get _vertigo_ , but at least you got it without breaking your neck or being sick. She never says where she's going, but somehow it's still comforting just to have them. _I'll be back. Don't do anything I wouldn't do._

So when you wake up to S on the phone with Kira sleepily asking questions in the background, you do the only thing you can. You look. It's not in your flat or the house. It's not in the bloody trees. It's not at the old school or at Bobby's, and it's still not in any of these places when you check again, and again, and again. And because you've always been an idiot where your sister's concerned, it takes you a full month to realize why.

You haven't found a note because this time, there isn't one.

**"your little girls"**

For a long time, you can hardly go out at all. You were only able to grab three tapes - any more and their absence would've been noticed - so that's all you have aside from your memories and the tin and the clothes on your back. You watch the tapes until their film is nearly threadbare, until you know every color and every word and every ambient sound. You keep watching them in your mind's eye as you fall asleep, and you're honestly not sure which loss is harder to bear. All you know is that grief tastes like hunger and there is nothing left to you that can fill it.

You write them both coded letters, like you used to, which you know neither of them will ever read. You drink tea and pretend your wife is asking you not to use the last of the milk.

When you can go out now and then with relative freedom, the world is a shock to your senses at first. To overcome it, you play a game. _This one has her eyes. This one almost has her hair. She would be this girl's age._ You never speak to any of them, only observe. You wait for smiles, or for laughter. And you tell yourself that somewhere, she could be smiling like that, too.

You imagine that somewhere she is happy.

“ **brave new world”**

She doesn't mind the distance because it's hard to mind something you've always known. She's used to smiling with her mouth and not her eyes, used to shared laughter that doesn't linger. Used to the professional world, where detachment is not only recommended but required. It lends rationality, they say. Perspective.

(In her personal life, she wonders what perspective this is, exactly. Some nights, with some lovers, she finds warmth, and for lack of a better word she calls it intimacy. She's used to closeness that never steps past a certain, unspoken threshold, used to being looked at, looked  _ at _ , rather than being seen.)

So when he approaches her at a conference and asks about her dissertation, she turns to him with a polite smile and the usual five-minute speech. But he stays after that. He asks question after question, not just about her work but her interests (“Where do you see yourself a year from now?” “Have you ever considered working internationally?”), and he is  _ genuine _ . She finds her smile reaching her eyes.

When he asks to continue the talk over dinner – still professional, but undeniably interested – she's disappointed but not surprised. There's something intriguing about him and this organization. A sense of vision, a sense of scale, a certain boldness that appeals to her.

It's only dinner, after all. It's hardly a promise. And she has so many questions.

Maybe she can change his mind.


End file.
